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She's always saying, 'I can't wait to tell Bill about this.' " While stories of intense battles between the President and the First Lady-always involving disputes about policy or political strategy, never about personal matters (at least, not in front of the help)-are common, former staff members are adamant about the closeness of the Clintons' bond. "When I think about them," N eel Lattimore, the First Lady's former deputy press secre- tary; says, "I think about the two of them sitting on a couch on Air Force One, holding hands, telling some old political story and arguing about who's going to tell which part-and finishing each other's sentences. The chemistry is just out there-they're such great friends." , " --::. CTILL, one wonders how Hillary Rod- U ham Clinton actually does it-how she can defend her husband so staunchly and with such a straight face. Her clos- est friends say that the subject of his dalliances is one she never talks about. "I think she literally decides that she be- lieves him," a former staff member says. "She focusses all her anger on the out- side threat, on the enemies who want to bring him down." Several friends say that Mrs. Clinton makes. a conscious effort not to get caught up in the media frenzy. She doesn't watch television or read the news- papers; she assumes that most of the pun- dits are opponents in any case. It doesn't hurt that she has, by nature, a more ex- treme sensibility than her husband. She is very much a Methodist of the moraliz- ing, nineteenth -century sort; in another time, she might have been a founding member of the Women's Christian Tem- perance Union. ("She is more likely to see things in black-and-white than he is," a close friend says.) This seems to be a matter of personal style rather than of political ideology; her liberalism is more pragmatic than flaming (although when she ran the health-care task force she'was known to rail against the evils of "incre- THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 9, 1998 mentalism"). She does have a weakness for fervent, all-or-nothing friends-Susan Thomases and Sidney Blumenthal are two-who tend to see the world severely divided between friends and enemies, and encourage her to see things the same wa (Time reported last week that Blumen- thal "created a gigantic diagram inside his office outlining with circles and arrows the byzantine Republican conspiracy sur- rounding the [Monica Lewinsky] tapes.") "Hillary taught me how to think in situations like these," one Clintonite says. "For example, a story suddenly appears in the Dallas Morning News that a Se- cret Service agent has witnessed Clinton and Lewinsky in a 'compromising' act in the White House. The Dallas Morning News? That's immediately suspicious. Dallas is where Paula Jones's lawyers are. Dallas is where Gennifer Flowers hangs out. And even more suspicious is the timing: the story appears on the very day that Monica Lewinsky is trying to make up her mind about what sort of deal to make with Ken Starr. It's a leak that is very much to Starr's tactical advantage- I'm sure that's how Hillary would see it. And then the story disappears within twenty-four hours. The Dallas Morning News simply retracts it. When the First Lady talks about a conspiracy, I think that's the sort of thing she means." If so, she could be a lot more precise about it. Her wild claim on "Today" that a "vast right-wing conspiracy. . . has been conspiring against my husband" was absurd, but not quite counterpro- ductive. It was, in fact, very smart poli- tics: "It was a diversion," a former Clin- ton staff member told me. "It gave the press something to write about other than Monica Lewinsky." Indeed, right-wing ideologues have long marvelled at the Clintons' ability to do many of the same things the First Lady accuses Kenneth Starr ot the con- trolled leaks, diversionary tactics, smear cámpaigns against their opponents. CertaInly they are masters of political theatre, as the President's State of the Union performance and the First Lady's television interviews proved once again. The day of the State of the Union Mes- sage began well before dawn for Mrs. Clinton, with preparations for the "To- day" appearance, and ended well after midnight, with a jubilant party for staff and friends at the White House. She was up early the next morning for her